The travails, triumphs of a missionary politician (3)

Chapter Six, aptly titled, “How Knoweth This Man Letters…?” is a critical and rigorous interrogation of the question: How did John Ayanfe Ajayi acquire so much academic knowledge and distinctive scholarship, since he only read up to primary six?

To answer this question, the author compares his circumstances to that of his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. The Jews asked the question: “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” The book notes that Jews were “oblivious of the fact that, at the age of 12, Jesus sat in the synagogue in Jerusalem in the midst of scholars, people who held doctoral degrees in their disciplines, exchanging ideas with them,” being a typical Ajantala, a child-adult genius or prodigy in Yoruba mythology. Similarly, the book explains that many people are ignorant of the fact that the author engaged in considerable private reading, independent research and academic self-development through correspondence courses. He also took formal examinations that earned him academic and professional certificates comparable to first and second degrees. This chapter is an exposition of how Pa John Ajayi became a home-grown professor who could not be outperformed or intimidated by any intellectual of his time. It is a revelation of how the author became an academic terrorist despite never seeing the four walls of a university. This segment of the autobiography is a practical manual for those who want to learn about self-development. It could be a motivational tool and an encouragement to those who lack the financial resources but are desirous of achieving higher academic goals.

Chapter Seven of the autobiography details the work experience of the author from the tender age of 10 years until he breathed his last on earth.

The sundry occupations discussed in the book as having been engaged in by the author at various times of his life are not just indicative of his versatility but also evidence of his positive work ethics, can-do spirit, doggedness and diligence. The job descriptions and titles include Isaana Oju Ale re e (Matches for evening light are here), Agbegilodo (timber merchant), the Alagbaro (the farmhand), Weaver of Baskets and Maker of Thatch, the Untrained Teacher, the Public Letter Writer, Journalist and Salesman, the block maker, the Oyinbo Elepo (Fuel Merchant), Gari Maker, Produce Merchant, and the Party Agent.

An incurable believer in the dignity of labour and an apostle of “hard work does not kill,” Pa Ajayi did every legitimate job available to raise money for his cherished life goal: sound education. From his account, he started work as an auxiliary teacher because “teaching provided the only salaried employment in those days.” However, he had to leave teaching because of “the drudgery of the job, compounded by the untrained, uncertificated stigma, the low earning and the monotony.” He even tried to become a constable in the police force, as he “preferred that to remaining in teaching without any prospect of advancement” or returning to good old farming!

This was the difficult situation under which he went into trading. The objective, he says, was “first and foremost, to facilitate the means of funding advanced education.” He reflects, “All the business enterprises I did in those years were for keeping body and soul together, while the real goal [good education] remained at the back of my mind all the time.”

Not for him the life of a loafer or cheat, he strongly believed the only way to success is hard work, self-denial, perseverance, dedication to the achievement of the defined goal. He says excellent service was always his goal.

Despite his diligence and dedication, the author recalls how he got sacked from A. J. Seward under very strange and inexplicable circumstances. However, he says the contrary winds that led to his getting sacked took him to Cadbury Nigeria Limited, where he rapidly rose to become an Area Manager. “When a person needs to be pushed up the ladder of life, men and circumstances are used by the divine hands for the pushing.”

Chapter Eight of the book is about his Family Life. The chapter describes how the loneliness of being orphaned at the age of 23 years drove the author into early marriage, as he lost his father when he was only thirteen and his mother barely ten years after. Desperate “to fill this aching void through marriage,” he got married in 1954, at the age of 24, to the second girl he ever befriended, Beatrice Adebanke, then an 18-year-old girl. The author speaks glowingly and passionately about this love of his life “who filled her roles beautifully.” She was a wife as well as a mother.” The early and unfortunate loss of his parents, a shattering experience of his life, ironically brought his marriage to his wife Banke (the best marriage that he could have had), a testimony to the truth of the Scripture, “All things work together for good to them who love God…” He equally says that his blissful marriage to Banke made her untimely transition at the age of 60 on 25th December 1996 “the most grievous experience of my life.”

The author also uses the book to explain the circumstances that led to his contracting another marriage even during the subsistence of his “recounted blessed marriage.” He attributes his second marriage mainly to the fact that his wife, because of the demanding circumstances of her profession, “was most of the time in the early days an absentee wife.” Aside from “this fact of perennial separation” from his wife, the author, in his characteristic bluntness and candour, confesses, “But fundamentally, the African in me is polygamist.” So, in 1958, while his first wife was undergoing her midwifery course, the author married another spinster, then Miss Margaret Ogbenuubi Ojo, who, like him, was a descendant of Erinmo. He recalls that he had to snatch the maiden from the man to whom she was betrothed at a tender age, “as the custom went in those days.” Explaining the seeming conflict between this anti-tradition action and his self-description as “an irredeemable traditionalist,” he says, “while I am a traditionalist and I respect the tradition of my people a lot, I revolt against, and break at will, such as I regard as unreasonable, anachronistic and unacceptable.” He points out that this oppressive aspect of our marriage custom falls into this category. The author pays tribute to the understanding of his first wife, her liberality and the motherly role she played to his second wife for the period the second marriage lasted. He regrets the dissolution of his second marriage, which he attributes largely to his pattern of “distancing from wife” because of the roving existence forced on him by his occupation.

The book underlines the topmost priority that the author placed on the education of his children. He states, “I could not bear to have children that would not be well-educated and well-read.”

The book also highlights the travails and trials of the author in his quest to build a personal house to provide shelter to his family. The experience, he notes, was “typical of the difficulty faced by all salary earners in the country and perhaps most countries of the world.” As the monthly income is never enough to take care of immediate and basic family needs while the building of a personal house is capital intensive, it is a daunting challenge saving enough capital, except in rare cases where employment conditions of service include a housing loan scheme.